Psychosis Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Psychosis, including details on clinical depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder.

A prospective study of offspring of women with psychosis: visual dysfunction in early childhood predicts schizophrenia-spectrum disorders in adulthood.

Schubert EW, Henriksson KM, McNeil TF

Unit of Psychiatric Epidemiology, University Hospital, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.

OBJECTIVE: Children with visual dysfunction have perinatal, neurological, visual-perceptual and cognitive abnormalities, similar to schizophrenia patients. We prospectively investigated whether visual dysfunction in childhood selectively predicts adult schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, and is related to childhood neurological abnormality. METHOD: Offspring of mothers with and without a history of psychosis were prospectively assessed with vision tests at 4 years, neurological examinations at 6 years, and interviews for psychiatric disorders at follow-up (93% effective, n=166) at 22 years. RESULTS: In the total sample and high-risk (HR) offspring, visual dysfunction at 4 years, and its severity, were associated only with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders in adulthood, and with neurological abnormality at 6 years. CONCLUSION: Visual dysfunction at 4 years of age selectively predicts schizophrenia-spectrum disorders in adulthood among HR offspring, this likely reflecting disturbed neurological development.

Published 14 October 2005 in Acta Psychiatr Scand, 112(5): 385-93.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2005-2008 Psychosis Research Today. All Rights Reserved.